Jay C. Batzner is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida where he teaches theory, composition, and technology courses as well as coordinates the composition program. He holds degrees in composition and/or theory from the University of Missouri – Kansas City, the University of Louisville, and the University of Kansas.

Jay's music is primarily focused around instrumental chamber works as well as electroacoustic composition. His music has been recorded on the Capstone, Vox Novus, and Beauport Classical labels and is published by Unsafe Bull Music.

Jay is a sci-fi geek, an amateur banjoist, a home brewer, and juggler.

I don't even remember what sound I started with. Probably clinking bottles. I like those.

It sounds good, but not entirely worth the 6 hour wait. Which is not the program's fault at all. I gave it a very linear course of action, a 24-bit file that was about 2 minutes long, and got what I asked for. Garbage in, granular out.

What I like about Amber is all of the morphing options. Most of the granular tools I use are plug-ins, which don't necessarily transform grains in time. Anyhow, I got some good use out of the sound, and the program is free. What more could I want?

So I've been playing around with this free granular tool called Amber-X. It is pretty cool, especially for being free.

I made the mistake of loading in a 36 MB file and asking it to generate a 60 second clip with maximal morphing grains.

That was at 11:15 this morning. It is 4:30 now.

Progress complete: 90%. Each 10% takes longer than the last.

It was my fault, really, for cramming such a big file into it. But now I HAVE to know what it sounds like. And I shall.

Tomorrow morning...

posted by Jay C. Batzner

4/09/2007

Credo

Sometimes I have to remind myself of a couple of things. These are a couple of, for lack of a better word, mantras that keep me going:

Opinions are all we have.Facts are facts, but we sort them into opinions. What we like, what we don't like, how we think, is nothing more than a series of opinions. Few people try to figure out WHY they think what they think. Getting to the base of the thought usually requires confronting nothing more than an opinion. If my music gets rejected from something, as is often the case, it reflects nothing more than a different opinion. I'm usually bummed that the piece didn't hit, but oh well. Different people have different opinions. Some folks like my stuff, some don't. There is plenty of room in the world for both sides.

Curiosity and enthusiasm are infectious.This underlies my teaching philosophy. If I'm pumped about the material, I think my students will get pumped. If I dig in and learn along with my students, they will be encouraged to learn more. This requires that students be open in the first place. A lot of them aren't. But, if I put my passions out there, some of them catch it. That makes my life worthwhile.

Music created with honesty and integrity is the only music that matters.This is why the whole uptown/downtown or popular/artistic discussions wear thin on me. I don't care if it is Elliott Carter, John Luther Adams, or Junior Brown: music either has integrity or it does not. I find that the music I respect the most is that which seems natural and honest from the composer. No musician is going to have a perfect batting average, of course. I can categorically like someone's output without feeling obligated to adore EVERYTHING they do. Who determines what "integrity" means? That would be your opinion, of course.At the end of it all, when I compose I simply try to be honest. This is the music that I need to be writing at this time. Times will change and so will I. Tastes will change and so will I. If I'm writing honest music, the rest will take care of itself. That is my opinion.

On another note, the History Channel was showing Planet of the Apes over the weekend. The original one. Discuss.

My birthday is coming up. I generally like my birthday, even though I don't make a big deal out of it. I like getting older. I want that wisdom and maturity that age seems to bestow. I like being more comfortable with myself simply because I've been me a lot longer than I used to. I still view myself as an immature 17 year old and, until recently, have thought the world should treat me as such. I've changed my mind about it and I'm starting to appreciate the things I've done as being significant.

I also cringe at the dumb things that I thought when I was younger. I remember not liking the Rite of Spring, for example. I grew up in a household that thought the Hooked on Classics albums were rather hot shit. To me, until I got into college, the Rite was simply the worst part of Fantasia. There wasn't much else to the piece, as far as I was concerned.

I'm amazed at how dumb I was and I shudder to think of all the things out there that prove such ignorance of youth. I've taken steps to cover most things that show off my immaturity which was, of course, completely appropriate behavior for someone my age. But just because I understand my behavior doesn't mean that I like it...

Musically, I think my music is starting to reflect my experience. No, I'm not some grand master. I'm younger than most everyone else here. I do see my students, though, being the same kind of stupid that I was back then. They say some things and act some ways that I used to and I just think "a decade or so from now they will look back at this and cringe." I hope I'm right.

And yes, in a decade or so, I'll read this and think how stupid I was. How trivial those podcasts were even though, right now, they are incredibly important to me. Not because I spend a lot of time on them (you can tell that I don't) but because I force myself to do it. It is like going to the gym. My 33 minutes on the treadmill isn't going to make me a hardbody. But I've only missed twice since Spring Break and I have lost 8 lbs in 3 weeks. That ain't shabby. And, in 5 weeks, I've developed a stronger sense of work ethic and work flow for electroacoustic music. I'm learning to force inspiration and, as they say, "get 'er done."